Harvard has pledged that no family making under about $180K will have to pay more than 10% of its income in tuition. This makes other college administrators very nervous, since they can't come close to duplicating that deal, especially without raising tuition for other students. One tuition-payer's advocate says it's a step in the right direction because it "puts pressure" on other institutions to start cutting costs, such as in areas of faculty salaries and "internet services," and adds that schools should operate more like businesses. Sorry for the rant, but that's a crock of shit. Only in America, where everything is supposed to be a saleable commodity, and where education is treated as a consumer product, do people go around saying this kind of crap. Why on earth is "operating like a business" a sensible ideal for a college to aspire to? It's not a fucking business, it's an institution of learning. It's not like a Wal-Mart or a travel agency, okay?

Running colleges like a business..... well they already are. I live near a college town. My neighbors are professors. I agree that education should not be a saleable commodity. But, when practically every instructor is nonAmerican, and the profits just keep rising at the colleges, the universities "smedge" the books by building more stuff. And use student comfort as the reason. Learning should be an institution, and our nation's responsibility should not stop at grade 12. IMHO that is. Good clip.

Take, for example, the following scenario. Man, wife, 2 kids. Man makes median income of 50K per year. Can't afford mortgage, carpayment and expect to send his first child to college. He makes too much to qualify for financial aid. Man goes and gets a 2nd job, resulting in another 50K income. Now, he's taxed and even a higher bracket. The government is penalizing a person for trying to better their kids via college education!!! Just doesn't make any sense. Despotic comes to mind here. Thanks for letting me rant.

I agree with you except for this part ...

But, when practically every instructor is nonAmerican, and the profits just keep rising at the colleges, the universities "smedge" the books by building more stuff.

At least, not at my college. Very few non-U.S. instructors, and profits are most definitely not rising. As far as new buildings are concerned, well, the "business" model says you have to attract well-off students, and well-off students want a country club-like environment -- elliptical trainers, big-screen TVs, etc.

Wow! Am I being naive to feel excited that they're doing this??? (Unless 10% of tuition is still $200,000, heh.)

That's ten percent of income, not ten percent of tuition...

Thx. That's $18,000 per semester, no?

While we're on the topic of Harvard, let me clarify by saying Princeton has a no loan policy and a generous Financial Package, and Yale's new plan isn't that bad either.

So, anyone trying to decide between, say, Harvard and Dickinson, or something, should have an easy choice for all kinds of reasons. Someone trying to decide between Dickinson and Gettysburg may have a harder time.

The main motivation for this from the Ivy League schools is that since upwards of 40% of their incoming students are due to "legacy" admissions (i.e. parents are alumni), they need fresh brains and a more diverse student body; and due to the existence of reasonably priced state schools, they haven't been getting their fair share.

Ivy league schools with their enormous endowments can make these kinds of moves and insofar as it encourages other schools to reduce their fees, I applaud it. Nonetheless, this doesn't get at the main issue which is government subsidies (i.e. government distortion) of higher education which removes incentives for cost-cutting the bloated bureaucracies that plague universities.

The question, again, is what you think the purpose of education is. If it's to certify skilled workers, you want one type of structure. It it's to keep culture alive, you want another.

Dartmouth announced some improvements as well!